BNE achieves domestic passenger record in October

Passenger numbers through Brisbane Airport in October were up 4.7 per cent on last year, with more than 1.9 million passing through the Domestic and International Terminals last month.

Domestic passenger numbers reached a record of 1.53 million in October, equating to a year-on-year increase of 6.4 per cent or almost 93,000 extra passengers.

Contributing to this growth was the addition of over 250,000 seats on domestic services, a 14.9 per cent increase in capacity from last year.

Intrastate travel continues to remain strong with Cairns and Townsville rounding out Brisbane’s top five domestic city pairs, taking fourth and fifth position after Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.

While international passenger figures were down by 1 per cent year-on-year, this is a positive result in the context of a 5 per cent reduction in seat capacity.

Growth in passenger numbers from China (+22.4 per cent to 14,500) and New Zealand (+5.2 per cent to 93,600) almost countered the 3.9 per cent decrease in Australian resident departures for October, which is partially explained by the one-off occurrence of the Rugby World Cup last year.

Another market showing growth last month was USA visitors, with nearly 10,000 Americans making the trip down-under.

The USA visitor and Australian resident departure markets are expected to strengthen with the commencement of Hawaiian Airlines services between Honolulu and Brisbane from 28 November 2012.